I’ve refused to give up on growing flowers from seed, though I’m still not confident I can do it. My sowing from mid-June hasn’t yielded amazing results, but there were some seedlings that obviously were not simply weeds (though there were plenty of those). I’m very confident that I grew a bunch of Nigella and Poppy seedlings. And a fair few Lobelia itty-bitty-seedlings as well. The Forget Me Nots and Pansies were almost certainly no-shows.

Flower Seedlings and a Host of Weeds

I prepared 2 pots – one round one that is going to beautify our back garden (you can tell it’s for the back garden by the unbeautiful chicken wire surrounding the pot to keep the chooks from decimating the plants) and one rectangular that I imagine sitting by the front gate greeting visitors with overflowing flowers.

Then I started separating the seedlings. A slow and torturous task where I know I’m traumatising the poor little things. The round pot was filled with alternating rows of Nigella and Californian Poppies. That used up maybe half of the seedlings. I left the remainder in their seed tray awaiting inspiration.

Nigella and California Poppy Seedlings

I decided the long pot would get the lobelia seedlings – they were tiny, like the size of lady bugs, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to realise separation of individual plants was hopeless. So I shoveled handfuls of them into the pot to what is best described as disastrous results. I don’t hold out much hope. Perhaps I should have left them in the seed tray for another month or 2. Oh well, too late now. Mother Nature is going to have to really step-up to produce one of her marvels this time because I was no help at all. The pot will live on the plant stand for a while as this display is nothing to show off to visitors.

Lobelia Sprouts looking Doubtful

Next, I looked at what was left in the trays. Quite a few Nigellas and Poppies in one tray and quite a few weeds in both (There should have been Pansies with the Nigellas and Poppies and Forget Me Nots with the Lobelias). The Nigellas and Poppies went into a hanging basket – why not? And the weeds were combined into one seed tray. I am an eternal optimist when it comes to seed sowing and I’m hoping some of those weeds are really flowers just taking their time.

Finally, I jammed some tomato seedlings (not-sown but they turned up anyway from the compost like they always do) in a side bed (one the chickens pretty much ignore) in the vain hope that this time I’ll be able to eat some of the wild fruits. In the past all my attempts at growing tomatoes have been rather unsuccessful so there’s no reason to be picky about what I plant.

After I planted them I started to clean up, water the plants and let the chickens out of their movable run (there is no way I could work with seedlings on the ground with chickens free ranging in the yard). I forgot to take a picture of the tomato seedlings so I went back out to capture the number, size and position to help me judge their success (or not). That bed the chickens had been uninterested in suddenly had become interesting. They didn’t eat the tomatoes – they don’t like the leaves so I thought I just might get away with leaving this bed unfenced – but they did dig near them and buried them. I may have to write this experiment off as a failure without attempting a recovery. But I’ll keep watering them just in case…

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I live on the banks of the Derwent River in Hobart Tasmania. I've have a couple acres of bush, paddock, gardens and plenty of weeds to keep me busy. I'm learning as I go about growing what I can, caring for the living things around me and enjoying it all while I'm at it.